LinkedIn will soon train AI models with data from European users

> The company says it will rely on “legitimate interests” as its legal basis and will offer an opt-out so members can refuse use of their data for training

"Legitimate interest" is a very specific term in context of GDPR. Not a lawyer, but have been looking into it previously, and I doubt "we want to feed data to our AI so we can make more money" passes the Legitimate Interest Assesment (LIA) test.

Here's an example of a test that must pass (sorry, docx, but way better than a random explainer): https://ico.org.uk/media2/for-organisations/forms/2258435/gd...

That looks like it would be easy to argue that it passes (claiming "makes the platform better for everyone", "not achievable without using the data", "the data is data that the people share voluntarily on the platform and isn't sensitive", "they're customers, we e-mailed them and they could opt out if they cared", "we expect this to have no impact on the individuals" (until the AI starts regurgitating sensitive details, but that's an "oops" for later), and "we are offering an opt-out even though we wouldn't have to" (claimed despite the lawyer strongly urging an opt-out, otherwise they wouldn't have even offered that).

GDPR doesn't allow "they knew and they could have opted out if they cared". You need explicit written consent.